Portland

I continued my journey today through the land of hippies; I've never seen so many Subarus in my life!  I drove out of Arcata this morning underneath a veil of mist and headed into the the trees again.  Unfortunately there is just no way to capture the full beauty of the redwoods using my little point and shoot camera.  You guys will just have to come and see it for yourself.

The only thing I was disappointed by was that I didn't get to drive through a tree.  I saw a sign yesterday for an exit to drive through one, but for some reason I thought I would have another opportunity today in the actual national forest.  Nope.  I guess I'll have to do it next time I make the drive.

Besides being ridiculously gorgeous, today's drive was pretty calm.  I had lunch at a fun little hippie version of Chipotle in Eugene; Laughing Planet.  I had some lightly steamed fresh baby spinach with black beans, tillamook cheese, salsa and gauc over organic brown rice.  Yum!

Once I got into Portland I checked into the absolute best, most amazing, fantabulous hotel ever.  Why all the praise??  Free wine, obviously.  What can I say, I'm easy to please.  The Vintage Plaza is right in the heart of downtown Portland.  So I get my room assignment and I headed on up (wine glass in hand).  Wow, I open the door and hmmm, it looks like the room comes with a backpack and hiking boots and wait a minute... the bed isn't made.  Oh shit!!!  This room belongs to some one.  I ran back out into the hallway and shut the door.  I don't think the occupant was actually in there, thank goodness.  The embarrassed front desk person gave me a new room and it would seem the second time's the charm!

I took a short walk around the downtown before stopping at Southpark for dinner.  I met a lovely couple (Dale and Donna) at the bar to chat with over a dinner of butternut squash ravioli in a sage butter sauce and sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts.  I was too full to order dessert, but Donna insisted that I have a bite of her warm bittersweet chocolate crostata and it would have been rude of me to refuse ;)

Tomorrow I'll do a little more Portland-ing and then it's just a short drive to Seattle (my new home!!).